[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]

Blame it on the Special Needs Child

After waiting for two long years, that dreaded phone call finally came while I was teaching the technical entrepreneurship class. I was summoned by the school to take my ten-year-old son home because he was kicked in the groin and in pain.

I rushed to school to find my Aspergers (a form of autism) and ADHD son in tears and in fear. He refused to reveal who kicked him as he did not want to get his friend into trouble.

Bring the Blame on

After some cajoling, I found out that was with his best friend (and model student) during recess. His best friend was bullying a grade 1 boy, asked my son to do the same, and kicked him when my son refused. As he treasured the friendship, he would have kept the incident a secret had the pain not been so excruciating, and I was called in.

To honor his wishes, I told the school I would not pursue, they need not punish the other boy, and his parents were not informed. The school was happy, but they had to account for the incident, so the educators put on the record that my son was explosive as an ADHD/Asperger child and caused the incident.

I learned quickly that people find it more comfortable to put a blame on a diagnosis than on a person.While it is normal that even good10-year-olds misbehave, it is easier to blame it on the weaknesses of an autistic child. That way, we need not explain why a model and top student can bully a grade one boy or kick his good friend.

When a child gets argumentative or distracted, it is much easier to explain the child is hyperactive or has an attention deficit and easily triggered rather than review to see if the classroom materials or the teaching style is appropriate for today’s children.

If there are squabbles between students and involve a special needs child, it is much easier to pin the problem to the diagnosis, not the children, not the parent, not the school, not the educator.  But is that fair?

Special Needs = No Win

I remember the days my son and I struggled in schools. There was never a case we have ever won, not even when we were right, like in this one.  “He was so difficult to get along, people had to kick him.” And even when he was minding his own business, there will be strange allegations that we had to deal with.

He was accused of knocking a classmate’s head with a recorder and caused a serious bump.  Upon examination, there was no bump, nobody saw that incident, no evidence, no doctor’s report (even though I offered to pay for one within hours of the ‘incident’) but it was still my son’s fault. I wondered why the other boy was not reprimanded for lying instead.  And now I understand.  Because he is another “gifted and model student” who won the nation’s spelling bee competition and my son is “just” a special needs child.

It felt victimized. Just because SOME special needs children are explosive or can be set off easily does not mean all of them are the same.  And even if a child has exploded once, it does not mean he is at fault every time.  Every child deserves a chance for every incident, special needs or not.

The Way Out

Unable to cope with the demands of the school as a special needs child’s mother, I decided to put him in an easier environment: the university. People are less judgmental, and gave him a chance to learn what he is poor at. I sat in his university classes just to teach him to use a tissue to cover his mouth when he sneezed, to ask questions only when the teacher paused, to look his classmates in his eyes, to bring a box of chocolates when returning a book to a lecturer.  In fact, some non-social-butterflies professors and lecturers found themselves in him.

Next year, he will turn 15 and will finish all the courses required to earn a degree. But instead of planning for his PhD, our plan is to return him to his age peers in a high school where he can practise his new social skills.

We look forward to him having more friends his own age, less accusations and a more rewarding journey before his school-going age is over.

From the University to High School

We hope to reunite him with his treasured friend in a school environment again. Their friendship was reinforced when my son brought his friend a birthday present just two weeks after that ‘kicking’ incident.  All was forgiven from both sides and the pain forgotten.

Ultimately, it is not about who achieves what grades or even who gets the degree first, all of us are gifted differently.  Perhaps a child with special needs take a little longer to get his social skills ‘right’, but let’s not forget he has other gifts, can contribute to the society and can be great, just as long as we stop putting blames, stop picking on him, look for his strengths, and allow him to work on his weaknesses.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]If we were more fortunate with schools, I should still be ferrying him around between therapies, the special needs school and classes to ensure he picked up the essential skills to survive this world. Like most mums with special needs children, I was less worried about his academic success, more worried about his ability to keep friends and a job. I wanted him to have a future like every normal child.  Therefore, I was busy, busy, busy.

Special Needs and Therapies

I did what the experts told me to, I signed him up for Occupational Therapy (OT), Behavioral Therapy, Sound Therapy, School-ready class and counseling session once or twice a week for each. During intensive periods, we had to attend these everyday. These were expensive, there was no subsidy from anyone, and we were always rushing from session to session without much thought.

One day, I decided to just drop everything and stop. After more than two years of therapies, my special needs son had not improved but regressed and nobody could reach out to his heart or mind to understand him.

Whenever we tried to know him a bit better, he would cave into his own world of Pigs, drawing and communicating to us as a pig with a character and none of us would know his hidden thoughts.

Even the therapists were giving up, and started to double book our appointments preferring to work with other kids, and for a number of times, we would waste the trip and go home.

Nothing (except one sound therapy) was working, and my son was on the verge of depression from trying so hard to please people, meeting their expectations, yet failing all the time.

Losing a Child to Autism

It was amazing how autism and the rituals of a family with an autistic child could rob me of my son. For the last few years, I had spent time screaming at him whenever his teachers complained about him: his shoes hitting the ceiling fan when he swung his legs (teacher said it endangered other children), sleeping during assemblies, and organizing a protest when the students in his class were asked to stick around after an exam paper when he thought they should go home.

Since all ‘traditional’ efforts had failed to make him behave the way they wanted him to, the schools decided not to tolerate his unending questions and explorations, they wanted him out of their classrooms.

Pushed to the corner, I decided to take him out of the agony he was in, and filled his life with his own passion: books and more books, programming and math. Instead of continuing to pick on his inadequacies and inabilities, I decided to focus on his strengths.

Taking Back the Child

Through the years of running around, I had forgotten to enjoy and appreciate him, his love for books and his varied and precocious thinking.  His views on human psychology, the wonders of the constellations, his version of evolution and his opinions on different business management styles. I did not have time for his artistic programming, mathematical shortcuts and interesting thoughts on paper.

I was so busy meeting the demands of handling an autistic child, that I forgot he could smile for the camera at six months old, told me how the rain was formed with regards to the water cycle when he was just one year old, and that he read at three through reading Captain Underpants. Most importantly, I forgot he was a child like others, with gifts and talents, yet I treated him like an object with imperfections I needed to deal with.

Instead of begging for support, I dropped all therapies and looked with educators who wanted to work with him to bring out the best in him.

Getting into His World

Even after two years off therapies, I still wonder if I had done right with respect to developing his social and communication skills. He was in his High School VP office yesterday, and as he discussed next semester’s university and high school plans with the VP, he was confident and made himself clear respectfully. He knew his limits with his work load and asked for appropriate support.

Maybe that was normal for other 13-year-olds, but for mine, it was a miracle and a reason for a celebration.

Since we got into his world and allowed him to pursue his love, his confidence grew and he was more willing to get into our world. So he decided to learn the social rules instead of challenging them. I also methodically taught him how to bring his different points of views up in appropriate ways, instead of telling him his thoughts were all wrong.

I am still unsure which psychologist was right, whether my son was autistic or not, but it did not really matter. I would have brought him up exactly the same way.

Through the years, I have come to understand that learning disabilities are real and they do impair children, but more tragic than learning disabilities is the loss of passion and childhood.

Complementing Special Needs School and Therapies

I am sure the folks at the Special Needs school are well-meaning, and they have probably put up the best programs for our special needs children. I am also sure these programs are effective.  Therefore, it is wise to use these resources if we get access to them.

Yet as parents, my experience tells me that we should do more than just sending our autistic children to therapies. More importantly, we must do what we would for any other children and look into their passion and help them find themselves.

Parents will always know their children the best, and should not believe experts or educators who claim that they know our children’s learning styles and passion better.

And, no matter how deficient we think our children are, high functioning or low functioning, we should never, ever believe that they have no unique gift, just not found. It is our job to look deeper and dig that diamond out to polish.

The journey is tiresome, and our job as a parent is the same no matter what kind of kid we are given: we are to bring the best out of him.

Will talk about how to find a child’s passion (Special Needs or Neurotypical – normal) in another article.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]If not for the current dyslexia epidemic, I would never know that my mother has a ‘learning disability’, for though she speaks three languages and three dialects fluently, she still jumbles up telephone numbers and has great difficulty reading. I also would not have guessed that I have inherited the same from her.

You see, I still cannot tell my left from my right, have no hand dominance and don’t believe in phonetics because I never learned reading through them. But I read perfectly and write better than many non-dyslexics, and I will explain to you how we learn.

I am blessed, for in our generation, we seldom hear of dyslexia, and I always thought my uniqueness was a gift rather than a deficiency and used them to the fullest while growing up.

Though my parents could not read any word with more than three letters, I figured how to read in English when I was just three. Nobody taught me phonetics. It was only later I realized I had a unique ability many dyslexic kids have: eidetic memory.

Eidetic memory is also photographic memory. Sadly, much as I wish I still have that ability, I realized it was gone when I was in my twenties. Researchers believe that this ability has nothing to do with intelligence and while I am not sure if that is true, I know that I depended on this to learn to read.

While other kids were learning how to pronounce and spell, I simply ‘took photographs’ of everything and drew upon this ‘database’.

Learning to read words was not difficult, I stored the ‘look’ of the word and associated that with the word usage and its sound. When the same word is presented, I simply reproduce the sound. As I grew older, I figured what phonetics was and learned that by first learning words. So you see, the learning to read is reversed for people like me. We cannot learn phonetics and then read, we learn to read, figure out how phonetics work, and then learn to read other words using the phonetics.

Sadly, this taking photographs technique cannot last forever and for many, the photographic memory disappears at six. Some researchers believe it is due to altered memory processes. Fortunately for me, another skill evolved. With the loss of my ‘internal camera’, I learned to break big problems into smaller pieces to understand and solve small puzzles one at a time, because small pieces of solutions were easy to remember.

These days, I realized I am like other people, I process very similarly. Some people believe it is because we learned to compensate for our disability, I choose to believe it is not even a disability, but a different ability. And though I have read hundreds of academic journals and articles, gone through thousands of textbooks and millions of magazines, I still have not read a single novel. I still cannot finish a book properly. Since reading is still a chore (and ironically part of my job), I am choosy and I must find a reason to motivate me to read anything.

I often look at my own children and admire their abilities to read books, one of my sons can read 20 novels a day and regurgitates all the information. It is strange because by statistics, each of my children have a 40% to 60% chance of being dyslexic, meaning two or three of my children should inherit this from me. Yet none of them is diagnosed with this disability.

I kept my oldest son’s P1 writing of his own name, his ‘J’ turned the wrong way, his ‘a’ looks like a ‘p’. His ‘7’ is laterally inverted. My youngest (#5) jumps from one line to another while reading. The psychologist told me my #4 has an eye-tracking problem and he would skip a line or two when he read. But you know what?

It did not matter one bit whether any of my kids is dyslexic or not, because it is not even important, it would not have changed one bit how I would have brought them up or taught them to read and write.

It was great I did not bother to second guess if they were ‘disabled’ and just kept exposing them to words, good books and good reading materials. They learned to read anyway, and way above their age level. If they had ‘disabilities’, i believe they would have found some ways to compensate them. My job was just keep on encouraging, making reading fun and providing great materials to them from young, so reading becomes a second nature and dyslexia cannot have a chance.

My son’s psychologist told me that because his comprehension is so good, he is able to compensate his eye-tracking problem, for whatever he skips, his superior comprehension made up for the lack.

So if your child is really young, provide the right opportunities. If you want the child to have a great academic future, he/she needs to be able to read, so open those doors for that. Buy the books, go to the library, switch off the television, provide a good reading curriculum and read to the child cozily.

You will be so glad that even if he is born a dyslexic, nobody will ever need to know.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]It was part of my Friday routine to go to the school’s lost and found counter to ask for Big Boy’s five missing water bottles. When my son was little, he used to lose everything you can imagine: his shirts, lunch boxes and his glasses. He was punished by his teachers once for going to school with unmatched shoes because he had lost one side of each pair.

His unusual forgetfulness drove me to find answers from different sources, and I found out that his executive abilities were either underdeveloped or dysfunctional.

Some professionals told me about Executive Dysfunction, and felt sorry for me. You can read about this condition here.

Some say what he has is related to ADHD or a other mental disorders.  It set me on panic mode and after going in circles trying to get this forgetfulness illness diagnosed, I realized it did not matter whether his executive abilities were developing later than others or that he had a disorder.  It was much more important to help him cope.

Fortunately, I know many ‘forgetful professors’ and meet them on a daily basis.  Just that in Asia, forgetful professors are not as common.  Forgetful and administratively poor people get squeezed out along their academic journeys to make way for the more conscientious and administratively sound ones who may or may not be as talented as them in other areas.

The reality is that organized and responsive people are often appreciated and well-liked.  Those who are weak in these areas are placed on the back-benches until they make some astounding discoveries to change other people’s perceptions on them.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/2″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]Until they become the Einsteins, our mission as parents is the same whether our children are weak academically, socially or lack executive functioning skills. Our responsibility is to help them overcome the obstacles and mitigate their weaknesses so that they succeed and become happy people. We are here to be their advocates.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner column_padding=”padding-4-percent” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” background_color=”#960000″ background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ font_color=”#ffffff” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/2″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]Read some of Einstein’s incredible real life stories here. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]

Teachers’ Nemesis

When Big Boy was in primary two, his teacher called me into the school to show me a pile of worksheets and workbooks that he had not done throughout the year.  In fact, he did no work at all.

As he was among the top ten students in the school, I was not too concerned about his academic ability, so I asked the teacher to get him to do the work if she wanted.  Not surprisingly, she said the class size was too big and she couldn’t do it.  Sadly, we left it there.

The situation got worse when he was in the secondary school.  With the increase in the number of subjects and projects, he simply could not function, and would lose all his worksheets and schedules.  Though he had good school teachers who would copy, recopy, and re-recopy everything for him, he would lose them all. It is not surprising that the teachers started to disbelieve his forgetfulness and deduced that he was disinterested and defiant.

Out of desperation, they would call me up and asked me to monitor him.  I tried my best, but it was difficult to read minds and predict what worksheets he had lost and what tests and examinations he had forgotten.

Involuntary Defiance

What the teachers did not know was that he was more desperate than them. Having spent eight years trying and not coping with these organization and administrative problems in school, and tired of explaining why he forgot, he decided that if he agreed with them he was not interested and bad, they would leave him alone.

It was then I realized what pain he had gone through, how hard he tried and tried and still failed, and how much he really wanted to do well but could not.  We found out no matter how hard he tried, he would still fall short.

Fortunately, he inherited the same problem from his mother. I spent most of my primary school years being punished outside my classroom for bringing the wrong books.  Nobody would believe me when I told them I had spent the whole evening trying to remember which books to bring and resorted to bring everything.  Somehow, I still managed to forget something every day. I recalled my own struggles and was determined to help him.

From experience, I know that the inability to remember administrative things is involuntary.  The skills to organize and administer, just like intellectual and social skills,  develop at different rates for different people.  I have lost count of the number of wallets, bus passes and umbrellas I had to replace  as a child and then as a teenager.

Though some people are born gifted with the ability to organize, others like us will have to learn to cope.  As an adult, I read articles, researched and trained myself to find coping strategies.  I created simple strategies: I always travel with only ONE big bag, don’t carry things in my hand, don’t put important things on other people’s tables, answer every email at once and only once, keep an electronic calendar to the minute. In fact, I plan all the meals of the week in advance, and the routes I would travel before I turn my car engine on.

When suitable strategies are in place and worked into a routine, it is possible to function, succeed academically, pay bills, have multiple children and become a high flying executive.  It is even possible to excel  especially if we find complementing help in a secretary, a partner, a spouse or a parent. In fact, I became very efficient and can juggle many roles better than an average person.

Executive Dysfunction can ‘Go Away’

For most children whose development in executive function fall behind their development in other intelligence, I found out that this imbalance normally corrects itself in the late teens.

Before that goes away, we as parents must work hard so that our children at least keep up with the work required of them.  We must chip in to help, teach time management and organization skills, and look out for tools to phase them into self-reliance.

The good news is, I learned that those of us who are poor in this area can become better than those who are naturally gifted simply because we will search and find new technologies and people to assist us in our planning and organization.

Einstein had his mother, and then his wife and a driver to help him.  Bill Gates had a wonderful mother and smart wife, too. I believe that the difference between a successful genius and a misunderstood one is that parent who would be his/her champion.

Big Boy’s executive dysfunction did suddenly ‘disappear’ when he went to the university at fourteen: he could hand up his assignments, finish his projects and organize his own things.  Though he still gets messy and disorganized when stressed, he managed to complete his degree at eighteen without help from his parents.

I often wonder whether it was because he was so enthusiastic with his studies that he tried extra hard to ensure his weaknesses were mitigated, or it was because he had great classmates who looked out for him and kept him in check.

So if you have a child who is so gifted in other areas that his executive function falls behind and into judgmental eyes, would you crucify him for what he lacks, or would you patiently work and put things in place for him until he finds his next champion or develop his own planning methodologies and coping strategies?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]